Inlays of marble, granite, turquoise, and other stones and vitreous materials have been used in decorative arts for centuries. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,772,748 and EP 1398177 A2. Typical inlay applications vary widely and encompass many different materials and methods from stone plaques with an embedded metal designs, to table tops constructed with die-cut veneer of differing wood species assembled jig-saw puzzle style and bonded to a substrate.
However, traditional methods of inlaying stone in wood have the disadvantage that the large pieces of stone are separated from the wood by an adhesive. This region separating the wood and stone is aesthetically unappealing and many attempts have been made to minimize the adhesive region.
One method to limit the size of the adhesive region is described in U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2005/0006019. This application teaches rending a decorative design for the inlaid panel and then transferring the design to a CAD software system. The CAD software is then used to precisely cut, using a laser, the wood inlay and composite panel for a snug fit. While this technique allows precision fitting of man-made voids, it is not economically feasible for inlaying stone in naturally occurring cracks in wood. To fill naturally occurring voids, a three dimensional image of the crack must be created before an inlay may be cut. Imaging the crack and creating a unique precise inlay with this method would be prohibitively expensive.
Furthermore, almost all known inlay methods require sanding or planing after the assembly of the inlay. A significant drawback of the traditional method is that color, which is required to make the inlay stand out, must be impregnated in the material being inlaid. If the color were simply sprayed on to the surface, it would be sanded or planed away. Conventionally, the only way to avoid this problem requires a time-consuming and expensive use of masking tape to isolate each inlay element from its neighboring elements and then subjecting the product to spot finishing. All too often, however, even with such precautions, the colors will often bleed past the boundaries blocked by the masking tape and ruin the effect of the inlay.
Thus, a heretofore unaddressed need exists in the industry to address the aforementioned deficiencies and inadequacies.